Berlin Part IV

Brandenburger Tor

I was in Berlin for twelve days—-But it wasn’t all parties, family, and fun.  I also had wanted to visit East Berlin to see the Gate of Ishtar in the Pergamon Museum. Reinhart drove me to Checkpoint Charlie. It was the only gate in Berlin where Americans could enter East Berlin. Driving through the Checkpoint would have been a zig-zag maze, but I walked through.  Reinhard wasn’t allowed to go through since he was a West Berliner and did not go to East Berlin at all.  I’m not sure if he didn’t go becauses the guards thought he was a security risk or if he chose not to go for fear of reperucussions like physical and verbal harassment by the border guards. 

After World War II, the Alllies (Americans, British, French and Russians) decided to divide Germany into 4 parts with each country ruling over a section or zone. As the recovery from the war happened, the Americans, British and French turned over their sectors to be ruled by the West German govenment, but the Soviets didn’t turn their section over to the West German governement.   Instead, to further their Communist “cause”, they created a communist Germany called the DDR (East Germany)  The borders were controlled by the Soviets and the Communist East Germans.

The American guards didn’t check my passport that I recall, but I was ushered into  a small building where the East German/ Soviet guards were.  They checked my purse and pockets for contraband. I had to exchange all of my money.  The biggest contraband of all was American or West German currency because they were both stable and more desirable than Russian or East German currency.  Bringing western money would have been a crime.  After checking my passport, the guards asked a few questions about why I was crossing into East Berlin and how long I planned on staying.

Checkpoint Charlie

Once in East Berlin, I walked around and felt like I’d walked into a war movie.  East Berlin was drab gray with ruins all around, as opposed to the modern flash of West Berlin. The store windows were almost empty and there were propaganda signs everywhere. “The DDR is the hope of all good Germans”  “Our Shared Responsibility: How was a war allowed to break out on German soil again” 

Propaganda in East Berlin

 I went to a hotel for a tour bus which took me to the museum——the Gate of Ishtar was in a huge room with skylights. I have no photos—-maybe they weren’t permitted or maybe I was just too stunned to get my camera out.  But, I have an awesome picture in my head.   The gates were in a very large room with skylights several stories above us, spot lights were focused on the Gate of Ishtar which shined like jewels.

By User:Hahaha - Own work, CC SA 1.0,
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=699655

Afterward, the tour bus took us to a war memorial and then back to the hotel ‘Unter den Linden” where we had coffee or tea. The Soviets and East Germans were putting on a “show” only showing us areas of East Berlin they wanted us to see. They didn’t show us all of the bombed out ruins that I had seen earlier.

 I walked back to Checkpoint Charlie where Reinhard met me. I changed my money back to western currency before I left the guard shack. It was not my only time in East Germany. We still needed to return to Memmingen, West Germany where we lived. To get home in West Germany, we needed to return to East Germany known as Deutsche Demokratische Republic—-it was not German but a Soviet satellite and it was not a democracy nor a republic but a dictatorship which didn’t tolerate Western ideas like our Bill of Rights.

fortgesetzt werden.. . . .